I am often hired by companies to take photos for their image banks, and many times they more or less request a style that is seen often in stock photos. Clean setups in a bright room, one or two persons having some sort of meeting and a relatively simple background. Photos that are easy to use on the web, in financial reports and newsletters, but with their own people, not generic models.

Using ordinary people to act as models can be tricky, but it can also be very simple. In this case, where they would be having an informal meeting around an iPad, I just told them to play meeting. And that is something most people can to, and even find amusing. As soon as they start having their fake meeting, I start shooting, giving them as little directions as I can. Sooner or later it looks almost natural.

Lighting this kind of photo is mostly done by adding light in a fashion that makes the image bright and clean. I try to imagine how the light would be if they where in an office with very large windows.

Behind the scenes

We used the cafeteria/kitchen in their office, and the distance from the models to the background was very short. Instead of re-arranging the furniture hoping to blur the background by moving things around, I set the lights so the panels/curtains in the background were evenly lit. No shadows at all, except from the panels/curtains themselves.

Windows as background

Outside, the weather was grey and boring, so trying to get a blue sky with puffy clouds outside the window as background was no option. Instead I let the highlights be blown out, surrounding their heads with white.

I often use windows as backgrounds, it is an easy way of incorporating natural light even if the rest of the lighting is artificial. And it is also an easy way of framing the models, adjusting the panels/curtains gave me the right ratio of window/panel/curtain that I liked.

White walls as reflector

My main light this time was from camera right; a Profoto D1 and a 5-foot softbox Octa adding a little character to the light. To get a fill that was big and looked natural, I pointed another Profoto D1, bare bulb, into the white kitchen walls, bouncing the light back at the models.

That is also a technique I use quite often, bouncing light in the wrong direction to make the light less obvious. Most of the time, natural light looks natural because it has bounced around and transfered colours from surfaces it hits, it is seldom just one perfect big source, more like a lot of different sources from approximately the same direction.

Traveling light

This was a setup with two lights, and that was enough for this photo I think. I am working mostly in Stockholm where I live, and where my studio and stuff is. This assignment was is Gothenburg, a three hour trip by train, so I had to pack as little equipment I could, while still being able to get the photos right.

Two Profoto D1, a 5-foot softbox Octa, umbrellas, a Chimera reflector/diffusion panel and a couple of light stands, that can do almost anything like this. The problem might come if the room is too dark and to big and trying to light it, and models, with just two lights. But, as I am working on my own, with no assistant, having more than two bags and the camera bag, makes traveling a lot more complicated.

So I think I have tried to create photos that can be done with less equipment than before, when I carried around a lot more just to be sure. Often the resulting photo is just like this, one or two people, and a little space around them.

The goal is to deliver photos that are easy to use for my clients, and looking at what they use on their web sites and in printed matter, there is almost always just one or two heads, in some kind of environment. Just like in tv-series.

Last year, I posted a test shot from this photo session with a Swedish author, and now I can show the real portrait. Her book is out, so there is no restrictions anymore.

This is from the studio were we tried a couple of different setups, one of them with a green background and ring flash. My main light was a beauty dish, but the ring flash did its part too by adding fill from the camera angle, on-axis as they say.

The main light is camera left, a Profoto D1 250 Air with a Profoto White Softlight Reflector. Fill is the ring flash and a Widesoft reflector, the gradient on the background is from a third light placed close to the background. And I think there must be a hairlight involved even if I can´t see it on this behind the scenes pic, probably on a boom.

This last photo is from the test shot with a friend, here the fill light from the ring flash is more visible on his skin, I think. It reveals details in a really nice way but is quite hard to work with. When I stood in front of the camera for the first test shots, I felt the light coming straight into my eyes wasn’t all that comfortable.

I will try adding a layer of ND-filter later for the ring flash, otherwise I have to use smaller aperture and being restricted to f/8 and above isn’t really my style, as well as having the model go blind during the session.

This is, without bragging too much, my smartest lighting setup by far.

Or so far. It is a combination of things I have learned when struggling with making the standard group shot more easy to manage and one of my standard portrait setups I use in the studio as well as on location.

This is lighting in layers, where each layer is a working setup for individual portraits/headshots and smaller group shots, respectively. All you need the four lights, but you could do it with only three if you skip the rim light.

Two Lighting Setups in One

Here is the behind the scenes shot from a large conference room I used when setting up a studio (or rather, two) for portraits and smaller groups.

That was my assigment. My client was having a conference, and I was invited to shoot both individual portraits of the employees as well collecting them in smaller groups based on which branch they were working in.

My first idea was to do as I always do, I set up two separate photo stations so I can go from one “studio” to another depending on which kind of photo that is written in the plan for that group or individual.

In the room I used there was a large (or fairly large) open space but the rest of the room was filled with chairs and tables. And I didn’t want to move everything around if I could avoid it (as I would be the one to put everything back later).

Combining different setups into one

Instead I thought of a setup I did earlier this year when shooting a small groups and individual portraits with the same two-light setup (see Same lighting setup for portraits and group photos).

That setup used two Profoto D1 with silver Umbrella XL (and Front Diffusers on), and worked very well. And that became the group part of this setup. As well as the background light for the portraits.

I try to avoid pure white background, at least on location, as it often gives the light to much ways to bounce around and make the portraits flat.

When setting up the lights, I first made sure that the background section would have the right light output and distance to the groups. If I would have tried to make the wall completely white, it would not have worked. But with a light shade of grey, the people standing near the wall looked good.

When the group section of this long studio worked, I set up the lights for the portrait section which used a 5-foot Profoto softbox Octa as my main light. Together with a round silver reflector from below.

And the small softbox you can see in the diagram pointing back at the camera, almost, is my rim light to add a little light to the shadow side. And the hair on that side. It was angled in a way that it didn’t hit the groups at all.

A very long portrait studio

This is not a setup that I can use on every assignment like this, few places I find myself in when working on location has the space to handle this. But the time it saved, not having to move tables around, and not having to move the camera more that a few steps back and forth, was great.

To have them all stand in the right spot, and for me to have the camera in the right position, I taped papers to the floor with markings so I would know where to direct them and where to place my camera stand. It saves a lot of time in Lightroom/Photoshop if I don’t have to adjust for not having the camera in the right place so someone gets bigger and someone else looks smaller.

It is not only time saving for me, working like this, it is also very good for the client that can plan the portrait sessions without having to pull the same persons from their meetings more than once during the day. Ok, that can be done with having two photo stations, but this is a more beautiful solution. I think.

Same settings everywhere, all the time

Maybe the most elegant part of this setup was that I used the same camera for all my shots, the same lens, the same camera settings (aperture and shutter speed) and the same effect on my Profoto lights, all the time.

I own two Profoto D1 250 Air and two Profoto 500 monoblocs. To make sure that this worked, I put one with Air in each part of the setup, i.e. my main light for portraits had Air, and one of the Umbrella XL had the other.

And finally, a Wall of Light

When I was done with the portraits and smaller group shots, my client also wanted a larger group shot with everyone in it (of course). They were around 25 in total, so that reqiured a smaller change of the setup for that to work.

I switched to a 24-70/2.8 lens and moved the camera to the group position. Then I placed them in two rows, changed the aperture so everyone would be in focus and turned the knobs on the lights to work with the smaller aperture.

To get the easiest light possible, I moved the Octa in between the umbrellas and got a smaller wall of light that minimized the risk of shadows in the group.

Group shots are not my favourite thing at all, so I try to find ways to make it easier to pull off. It almost always ends up looking like a class photo, but if you have two minutes when everyone is in the same room, it is nice to know that the lights just works. And that I can focus on making them all look into the camera at the same time, and all that.

So, almost three setups in one.

And you could probably do it with just three lights, that would work too.

This is a portrait from one of my latest assignments, press photos of a debuting author of childrens books for a Swedish publishing house.

The day before I had shot headshots of a guy working as a promoter here in Sweden, a little bit like Jerry Maguire as I understood it. Instead of packing all the lights away for the night, I let them stand in the studio so I could use the same setup as a starting point for this photo shoot.

Most of the time, I start from scratch, but having a main light and all the setting already tested saves a lot of time (when possible, as I share the studio with others that uses it from time to time).

Still trying to mimic sunlight, in some way

What I kept from the previous lighting setup was the main light that I was very happy with, a Profoto D1 250 Air and a Profoto Telezoom reflector shot through a very large Chimera panel with diffusion fabric.

Underneath, there is a round silver reflector to add more sparkle to the eyes and lighting the shadows just a bit.

The quality of the hard light softened a bit by the large screen was very good for portraits as it was both large and had contrast that defined the facial features in a very flattering way. A bit like sunlight through a white canopy/parasol. Almost.

I am not yet there, finding a way to mimic that soft but sharp light I like in the summertime, I think I need a sharper light source for that.

Just add a brown background

The day before, I had shot portraits on a light grey background, placing the background light outside the window for some effect that I didn’t really achive. Instead of building on that idea, I brought the light inside again, put up a roll of brown background paper and let the other light work as a background light on that.

Just by adding something in the background can completely change how the main light feels (and the picture as a whole as well). And instead of letting the background double as separation, I let the model blend into the background a bit. Or a lot more than I usually do.

The background light in this photo is equipped with a Magnum reflector and two layers of diffusion to avoid having the specular highlights completely blow out the brown background. Looking at the portrait now, I think the main light could work very well alone, but the background gradient might add something to the picture that otherwise would have felt a little to murky.

The background paper was just half of the standard width, and that is in many ways more than enough for half-length portraits. Having a smaller background also makes it easier to move it around, you can also change the angle, which I didn’t try.

Similar portrait styles, different reflector

I have done similar lighting setups earlier, but with a grey background, and with guys in suits standing in front of the camera. Business portrait with 3 lights is one of them, even if I used a Magnum reflector as my main light then.

This version of that setup was easier to work with as I had the main light further away and higher up. Not a setup I would try to use in a client’s office, but with a studio with more space and height, it is very useful and produces nice light.

Save different starting points

A lot like a hair dresser or a chef, having some main recipies (or styles) to start with is a real time saver. I have found some simple setups that I use frequently that I even know the aperture, distance to subject from the softbox (an Octa for example) and effect settings on the light to get it right without even having to try it out on a model. If I can set up a working main light without thinking so much about it, it leaves me more time to get all the other details right.

And just like a chef, adding a different seasoning or sauce, can create something completely new. Even if it is just a version of something old (and time tested).

If I would have just changed the background of these photos to a bright yellow or a sky blue, it would have been something completely different.

Sure, you can, with the right setup, easily change background colour in Lightroom. But it feels a lot better to get it almost right directly in the camera.

I am more than happy with the results of this kind of light, and I will continue to explore how to modify the thing around it to create different setups. But I would also try to get closer to the light I am looking for, maybe a Hardbox or Fresnel lens of some sort could help? Or a different kind of diffusion?

Nikon D700 and a 85mm/1.4 lens (as usual).

Setting up a photo studio in a client’s office is often a lot of work, but I really appreciate that my clients uses their own people and places to create stock photography-looking photos instead of buying generic ones.

In many ways, it is easy to follow the stock photo recipe, and it creates photos that are easy to use for my clients. This day, we did four different settings, and the “discussion between colleagues at the coffee bar” was one of them.

The problem was the rain pouring down outside with heavy grey skies and almost no natural light to use to get ambient light into the scene.

Behind The Scenes On-Location

Lucky for me that this office was rather big, not so much when it came to how high I could place the lights, but I could place my lights and models without having to be in the way of everyone working there. A little perhaps, but I didn’t have to disturb their working day too much.

For this assignment I used three lights, I seldom bring more on-location as it makes the equipment bags too heavy and hard to move from one floor to another (this office had two floors with a small spiral staircase connecting them, not so fun to move things that way).

A large space and just three lights

I could have used a lot more lights to get the the background exactly like I wanted it, but then it would have been no space left for the people working there. So it is always a balance between perfect and doable. I usually go for doable. Even when I try to get the light in a large office to look natural.

The main light comes from camera right (or rather, all three lights come from that direction in this picture) and it was a Profoto D1 250 Air with a Profoto 5-foot Softbox Octa. That is my main choice for the main light most times I am working on location, from single portraits to smaller groups. I have used it often and I know how it behaves, quite nice to know when working with a tight schedule.

Lighting Setup Diagram On-Location at the office

The main light together with a round collapsible reflector on the other side was all I needed to get good light on the man and woman talking at the coffee bar. The two other lights were used to get the background right.

One of the background lights was pointed in the same direction as the camera to avoid creating ugly shadows. I added a couple of layers of diffusion on the Zoom-reflector to make the light a little softer.

The last light, I used to get the nearest parts of the background even brighter to separate the man and woman better from it. But with its direction from right to left, it also acted as hair/rim light on the couple which made them stand out even more. The useless windows were to the right, so on a sunny day, the light could have looked a little like this with hard light coming from that direction.

To control that last light a little better, I used a 3-foot Creative Light softbox Octa, a very small light modifier and easy to use.

Sunlight or fake light

I have been to their office a sunny day, and I think I could have produced photos looking almost like this with just natural light. Maybe one or two reflectors to lift the shadows a bit. But being there on a rainy day, the sun was of no help.

To get the studio lights looking more natural, I used a shutter speed of 1/60s together with an aperture of f/3.5. It might be a bad mix of lights, but I think it looked pretty natural. As natural as images like this can look like, to be exact. It is a fake situation, but I am not thinking too much about the light.

One or two more lights

In a perfect world, I think two more lights would have removed the small imperfections I see in this picture. The major one is the ceiling that is a bit too dark far away in the background. Again, if the sun had helped me, it would be a lot more light in that area of the picture, but a light far away camera right could have solved that too.

And maybe another light to shine in through the windows in the right part of the picture, where the guy in blue/black is talking on the phone. It would have been nice to get light from that direction to lighten it up a bit.

But, with just three lights this is what I achieved, and the schedule didn’t allow for much more time on this one.

To sum it up, this is what a lot of my assignments will look like the next six months or so, living and working in Sweden. Relying only on natural light is not really an option, maybe for quick portraits in the middle of the day, but never for booked stuff like this when we have to get the pictures when we can get the people and locations together.

Preparing for the darkness

Reducing the workable days to just one or two hours around lunch time is not very economical, better to bring your own light and work on getting really good at making it look pretty. Without having to have a bus load worth of equipment that requires assistants and hours of preparations. That is not really my style.

I have just recently starting using umbrellas in my lighting setups, but that was not the case before Profoto released their XL line. First I bought two Umbrella XL Silver (together with front diffusers). They have proven to be very useful for easy on-location lighting of both individual portraits as well as smaller group shots.

This spring, I added an Umbrella XL Translucent to my equipment bag, mostly to use as a very soft and big fill light that didn’t take too much space in my equipment bag. Not needning to pack so many softboxes and especially speedrings makes a lot of difference when shooting on location. I carry everything myself.

This umbrella is really big, and a lot softer as well as very non-directional compared to the silver version. Even with the front diffuser on (the silver, that is).

Turning off the other lights

Using it is very easy, in a moment you get a huge orb of light that can be used in many ways. For this one light portrait, I used it with a Profoto D1 on a boom stand in the studio.

We had started with another setup (see Studio Portrait in fake Sunset) and this was just a basic version of that one, sometimes it is fun to reduce the original setup to its most basic form by turning off all the lights except the main light.

For most one light portraits I do, I tend to use more interesting light modifiers as my main (and only) light. More often a beauty dish or Magnum reflector, than a big soft light (maybe a softbox Octa sometimes).

But testing this big and soft light in the studio makes me believe that it would work very well on-location mixed with natural light. As I said about the silver version holds true to this as well, it is very lightweight and easy to pack, and that is really something that I like.

The problem might be that it is so big, shooting standing portraits in small rooms with low ceiling might not be that easy (or just produce boring flat light). It needs almost one meter above the flash head to fit in.

Or you can use it as fill of course.

This portrait, taken in a loft where a couple of creatives share office was in fact not the reason that I went there. My assignment was to take a couple of publicity portraits of an illustrator working there, but when I asked some of his colleagues if they needed portraits (as I already had my lights set and was in no hurry) this guy said yes, please, why not?

This might be one of the easiest ways of selling a portrait session, I try to ask whenever I have the time and the moment feels right, someone will usually go for it. It could be some sort of business idea somewhere in this, but I haven’t really had the time to take it further, but selling professional portraits the same way they sell ice cream could really work. The problem might just be to find the right spots?

They had their shared office in a loft, not that big, but with beautiful windows in both ends. Using the old windows as background for this portrait felt good as I later added a few non-flash portraits (when the windows where just the light source and not in the picture).

I set up my camera on a stand facing one of the windows, and dialled in a good exposure so I still had some details of the blurry trees outside, but mostly an overexposed background that let the subject stand out.

On the test shots, I saw that one of the lights inside their office added what you might call a hair light (even for the guy without hair). Sometimes that small detail, leaving in on, that is, can make portraits like this look a little bit more natural. I don’t exactly know why, maybe it is the mix of different colour temperatures, or the added highlight that makes it look less perfect. And therefore more natural?

With just the light from a Profoto D1 250 Air camera left with a white Softlight Reflector (beautydish), the shadows where a bit too dark for my taste. Instead of just adding a reflector to lighten the shadows, I placed another Profoto D1 behind me pointing at the wall.

By accident, this fill light also added a small catchlight in his eyes, you can see that it is the only catchlight in the first portrait (when he was sitting down and the angle from the main light didn’t throw any light into his eyes).

These portraits where more or less ready to use straight from the camera, but there was one thing I wanted to fix first. After adjusting contrast and some minor details in Lightroom 4, I did a second copy and copied it to a layer with a mask in Photoshop. Using the Highlights tool in Lightroom, there is plenty of room to bring back details that might look blown out. But masking the edges nice and adjusting local opacity is a lot easier in Photoshop.

The problem area was his white t-shirt. With my adjustments in Lightroom, there was too much of it that was pure white, with no detail. But adding that extra layer and a copy with a little less contrast and a negative Hightlights value, I could bring back enought to make it look good again.

Too bad my studio is a bit small for a window like this, otherwise I would love to use it as background more.

Finally I have bought a Profoto Ring Flash, together with a PR Widesoft Reflector. I got both used at two different stores last week, by pure luck, and payed a little more than half the price they cost new. So I am happy.

Having only used the Orbis for my Speedlights before (mostly for fun portraits of my kids), this is a big step for me. I have tried using the Orbis in the studio, but never really gotten any good results. This was completely different, and quite difficult.

For my first run with the ring flash, I had something Dan Winter-ish in mind, just as a starting point (it evolved into something really not like it, of course), but without the heavy coat.

The setup for this portrait used a Profoto AcuteB 600R connected to the ring flash. It is the only thing I can connect it to, as I only work with Profoto D1 monoblocs in the studio. Starting with the lowest effect setting, I added a gridded Profoto Magnum reflector camera left high up feathered onto the model’s face and a medium sized Creative Light Octa as hair light (but that is almost not visible in this shot).

I will do a more detailed blog post later with more examples. Working with the ring flash is very different than using other types of lights (or modifiers), a whole new technique for me to try to master some day. But I like it already, and I have been thinking of getting one for a very long time, so I guess I will try to fit it into a lot of different lighting situations, just to learn.

Before the summer, I was hired by one of Sweden’s largest online book stores to make seven different still life product photographs for the marketing of a new ebook-reader called Letto.

The idea was not to have the reader stand alone, we planned to build some kind of environment with small still life things around it with the product standing in the center, all with different themes.

My original idea for the lighting was not at all like the final images, but just being a part of the process was interesting and rewarding, even if my ideas and preparations had to be modified to fit in with the clients needs and wants. Or rather, it all changed course during the day and we ended up with a different result.

This was my starting point, a test image early in the day before the Art Director and the client arrived. Using a small door from an IKEA shelf on two sawhorses there was enough room around to work with the smaller product and everything we planned to fit in there.

Originally, I had the idea of having the product stand on the white door and have a light grey background with a lighter gradient coming from the center. The background was then to be coloured in different colours to fit the different themes using gels. This shot was a bit too dark.

Here is the same test shot but with a blue gel on the background light. The light comes from under the “table”, a Profoto D1 with a gridded and gelled Magnum reflector.

My plan with having a small gradient in the middle of the picture was that I later could expand the image in any direction if the background in the corners had same brightness, which meant that the gradient had to stop a bit from the corners.

Here is a shot from behind the scenes, with a pink-ish gel on the background light. Having the light coming from under table lessens the risk of too much coloured light spilling down on the white area which the product stands on.

Setup using 4 lights

In total, I used four studio lights for this, all Profoto D1 (two 250 Air and two 500). There was the background light, and then one from straight above in a medium sized softbox (2 x 3 feet/60 x 90 cm) and a strip softbox from camera left just outside this photo. The main light is a white Profoto Softlight Reflector (beauty dish).

Using a beauty dish in product photography might not always be optimal, especially if there are glossy things in which you can see the reflections clearly (as in the test images above with the small tv), but for this it gave a large enough light with nice shadows that defines the shape of the still life elements.

Pretty far from my test shots

Working towards a lighter background, this was about what I had in mind, but with different hues for different themes. I thought it would be good if we did some of the shots with darker backgrounds as well, but with that it would be harder for my client to use the photos together with all the design elements they wanted to fit in. A lighter background is easier to use in many ways.

Usable rather than sticking to the original idea

After an ongoing discussion during the first part of the shoot, we settled on a total white background. Maybe not as exciting as the gradient one, I think, but a lot more usable when taking into account all the stuff that would be added later until it became a finished banner or ad.

Photos usually don’t stand alone

Seeing the photos in use on especially the online shop, it is easy to see how much better a white background works. It is nothing like my original idea, but that is part of the job, I think. To be able to change course during an assignment when the original idea meets reality and crashes a bit.

This is a great example of how good it is to have the client with you in the studio during the shoot. If I would have held onto my original lighting idea, and they later would have wanted me to change the gradient background to a white one, it would have taken me several hours in Photoshop to produce a worse result than just having to remove the grid on the background light and turn up the effect until the background was white. Those kinds of rescue operations in Photoshop are never fun.

While white background might not be the most artistic solution, it is very easy to use. A darker background creates an image that is harder to fit into the design.

This might be a more beautiful product shot in my mind, but it has a lot of limitation when used small or in a layout. I will have to save this lighting idea for something else, now that I have tried a way to make it work.

I don’t really know the point of this blog post, I planned to just show the step-by-step of this assignment, but it turned out more like some kind of words of wisdom on how you have to go with the flow to get the client happy and get the work done.

We have a children’s story in Sweden, don’t remember what it is called, but it involves someone ordering something from a tailor and after a couple of visits when he/she has been promised something beautiful by next week (it goes on with promises of smaller and smaller things a couple of rounds), it ends with just a small crochet thumb or something like that.

This was a bit like that, we started out trying to create really nice still life photos with the product in the center, but ended up with something a lot more ordinary, but a lot more useful.

It’s not spectacular, but good. And that sells, and makes the clients happy. And makes them use the photos a lot (which I always like that they do).

I will try to do something spectacular another day.

Spending a small amount of money on props can make a studio portrait a little bit more interesting, in this case black bamboo blinds from IKEA together with a fantastic model and a gelled background light.

It might not fool anyone to think it was shot in some fancy location on Bermudas, but it beats using the same grey background over and over again. And it took me no longer to set up than any ordinary portrait I do.

Blinds are very useful in the studio

I walked by a store selling used stuff and found this IKEA-thing. My first idea was to buy some glamour style fabrics to use as background, but left with this. Will buy some real blinds later, I have always liked the light coming through them and think they can be a good lighting modifier in the studio, but these worked good as well.

Behind the scenes (or blinds) in the studio

This is how it the studio was set up for this portrait. Doesn’t look very fancy, but just adding the blinds almost right behind my model together with a background light created something that might be used later with more props.

My first setup used the background light aimed at the blinds, and directly at the back of the model, but it didn’t look as I wanted it. So I turned it towards the background, and together with the orange colour filter on the Profoto D1 (and a Zoom Reflector), it became some sort of warm sunset on the horizon (or so I would like to look at it).

Studio Lighting Setup Diagram

I used two lights for this setup, both Profoto D1 250 Air. One for the background and one main light camera left with a Profoto Umbrella XL, Translucent. That is really a very big umbrella, used this close to the model it gives a very soft and nice light, like a ball of light with a diameter of 165 cm.

Earlier this year, I bought two Profoto Umbrella XL in silver, and they have proved to be very useful, for example when lighting individual portraits and small groups on location with the same setup. Not to mention that they are very lightweight and quite cheap, compared to other Profoto products.

I have never before been a big fan of umbrellas, but in this size, they are nice to have and can be used in many ways. Using just one big main light is quite easy, the light will wrap around coming from such a large source. I didn’t feel the need for any fill or reflectors in the shot, I think it looks good this simple.

It is interesting to see how just a few props can make a portrait session like this a lot more interesting. I have been too minimalistic for a long time using only grey background for most of my portraits, but have in a way woken up to the possibilities of just adding a little extra to make it fun again.

Sooner or later, I will build large sets with elves and rainbows. That will be fantastic.